Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Yeah, so fair warning here: I'll probably be blogging A LOT during the summer. I'm hoping we get to most--if not all--of my summer bucket list, and I'm sure I'll want to share oodles of pictures and stories with you all!

Anyways, my summer is off to a great start--and technically it's not even summer {season-wise} yet! We still have another few weeks before it is officially "summer" in the weatherman's books...but for now, since I'm not a'workin', it's most definitely for sure summer for me.

Patrick has totally gotten to do some fun stuff lately! Primarily getting TWO trips down to Aunt Kate's lake in already! Little man LOVES the pool and swimming--I have a feeling we are going to be spending a LOT of time this summer in the water--and that's totally fine with me!

After a few pool trips thus far, I went ahead and bought Patrick a "Puddle Jumper"--I have had soooo many friends tell me about how awesome these waterwing/life jacket hybrid learn to swim things are, so I went and got one. Even though it says for 30lbs and up, Patrick is just a few pounds under that, so I figured I'd get them anyways and see if they fit: and they do! Woo hoo! I can't wait to have him try these bad boys out the next time we go to the pool...which is hopefully soon!

Like I said, Patrick really LOVES the water. The most recent time we went down to Kate's lake and swam at her community pool I remembered (shockingly, cause I can't remember ANYTHING...EVER. Baby brain never actually goes away people) my underwater camera and got to snap a few pics of Patrick swimming underwater and us playing in the pool. He's such a little fish!

cruisin' around walking at the pool--he's probably walking about 1/2 the time now, and crawling 1/2 the time.

One of my now all-time favorite pictures! Dude is LOVING swimming under water!

Gammie did good with picking out this oh-so-adorable Octopus towel!

So yeah, Patrick loves the pool. Prepare yourself for probably pool picture overload this summer! And I apologize for those who follow me on Instagram too, where you end up seeing these pictures twice. It's just so hard to resist capturing that cute little smile and his enthusiasm for the pool!

This past weekend Patrick and I went to Kate's lake with just the two of us--Mike had to work--and I had fun snapping some pics of him looking adorable outside Kate's house, swinging on the swings, and in his cute little orange shorts and wife beater shirt.

Then we also got to go meet dad at Ted Drewes while he was working earlier this week--that was awesome. I wish I would have snapped more pics! Patrick was clearly looking way tired in this pic after a long day of swimming.

We also got to have dinner at one of our favorite Kirkwood restaurants with uncle Danny while he was in town. How flippin' old does Patrick look in this picture? And that subtle little lip curl?! OMG. I die.

Our fabulous new neighbors had a big Memorial Day BBQ on Monday, and it was great getting to meet some of our new neighbors (and kids! There's one little boy on the street who's just 3 days younger than Patrick!!) and get to know them. Patrick was amazing--again--just chillin' for most of the BBQ in his little lawn chair...and rollin' up to the BBQ in style in his hat and sunnies.

Last night we got to celebrate uncle Brian's 28th birthday--and it was so great having the entire Mooney clan in town! I suggested we do some family pics, since everyone would be there, then my sister-in-law Katie geniusly suggested that we all wear Cardinals gear for the pics! How cute did these family pics turn out?! Good call on the Cards gear Katie! And good call Mike on pictures in front of the old green barn!

Of course, the kids stole the show. These pics of them...I just DIE. I can't handle the cuteness!

Also, I got some much-needed snuggle time in with Lizzy. And then my baby fever went from 100 to 10000 in like .2 seconds. Thanks Lizzy.

Wow. What a start to the summer! So much lovin' a'happenin' with the Mooneys! Pool, babies, family, and a whole lotta food!

Here's to the rest of the summer and hoping it goes SLOWWWWW and is as amazingly fun as the past several days have been! Summer, I LOVE YOU SO.

Sunday, May 25, 2014

It is officially summer vacation for this gal. Do you know how excited I am?!! Multiple that times a thousand, and you'll be pretty close.

My last day of school with my middle schoolers--and last day at MRH--was Friday. It was bittersweet: I am so excited to embark on my new job and content area (technology) at Ursuline, but boy, I sure am going to miss my kiddos...a lot.

I actually published my final (at MRH) blog post on my teaching blog on Friday morning: it was all about my 8th graders' Defining Moments (digital story) project they just completed. If you're interested, head over to my teaching world and give them a view. Some will definitely bring tears to your eyes! And yes, this was my last post on my MooneyClasses blog--but my last post from MRH. I will continue to write on that blog in the years to come about what projects my kiddos are doing, reflecting on and discussing what's happening in my education world, and much more.

So onwards to summer! What does summer mean for this gal? Well, for the first time in like 6 years, I have absolutely nothing to do for work--no curriculum writing, no summer school, no home visits, no professional development trips--NADA! This is still really bizarre to me--that I don't have piles and piles of work to do even though it's summer. However, I plan to take full advantage of all of my "free" (haha, I never have free time with a 1 year old!! --how about "non work") time with my little man.

Patrick is at such a fun age right now--he's super duper close to walking 100% of the time (right now it's about 5-10 steps, then crawls, then gets back up, takes 5-10 more steps, then crawls again), he's interested and curious about everything, and he actually understands what we're saying to him (although most of the time he whines because he doesn't like that we're telling him "No, you can't put the remote in your mouth," or "No, don't pull the dog's tail."). Last summer was great with Patrick too--but he was an infant and just laid there most of the time and looked cute. This summer I feel like we can actually go do things and both of us enjoy and experience them!

We started our "first weekend of summer" off great: I had a photo shoot Saturday morning (which, by the way, I have fallen in LOVE with the red barn pics I took! Definitely gonna recommend this park--Bee Tree Park--to others for future photo shoots!), Patrick got his fourth (I know, I have a problem) custom Hoho (Scootie Hoho as I call it),

Patrick got to meet some super nice firefighters, who let him (and me) sit in their firetruck AND gave him a cool "Kirkwood Fire Department" helmet (which, surprisingly, cop dad was totally okay with and loved!),

Patrick's awesome new nappy cover came direct from England! His buddy Huck and him now having matching British dipes--that you can't buy in the states! **SQUEAL!!** this is so awesome.

And finally, the boys enjoyed some playtime in their cop car cozy coupe (which I lovingly made into one that mimics their dad's district beat) and having some dinner date time with uncle Danny, who was home for a few days before going back to CoMo.

So, summer is officially here and I've loved every minute thus far. Since it's still the very early beginnings of summer, I decided to make an unofficial summer bucket list--things I really want to do with Patrick and hope we get to do...but if we don't, that's okay too, cause I'm sure we'll be doing something equally or more fun than what was on my list. So, here it goes:

Go swimming ALL.THE.TIME. (this one will be easy...my little fish loves the water and so do I! We'll be at the pool more times than we're not...I hope!!)

Go to Grant's Farm (we've never been...and I'm hoping we can make at least one trip to visit all of the animals there this summer!)

Ride the train at the Zoo (Patrick has done this with Gammie and Gramps, but never with me--I want to ride the train with him at the Zoo too!)

Go swinging/play on the playground at 5 new parks (Trying to adventure outside of our comfort zone of the parks right by our house and get to experience new playgrounds and swingsets!)

Go to the Botanical Gardens (I haven't been in YEARS, and Patrick has never been, so I thought this would be a cool place to visit! Plus, there is a morning a week where it's free--so we'll definitely be going on that day!)

Go to the Magic House (saving this one for an especially hot day--and probably later in the summer when he's confidentially walking--but I can't wait for him to experience all of the awesomeness of the Magic House!)

Get Patrick a library card and attend some toddler library events (just need to get ourselves to our beloved library, get little man a card, and check out what events they're having this summer that are geared towards 1 year olds!)

Take Scooter (& Patrick, duh) for some pictures under the Arch (Scooter and his BFF Braxton had an Arch photo shoot a few years ago, and I'd really like to do another one with Patrick now!)

Take Patrick to his first Cardinals game (this one is going to be tricky--I have to try and plan it for an early evening game, or a late afternoon game, so his sleep schedule doesn't get too messed up--cause, as you know, I'm ALL ABOUT keeping the sleep schedule on track!)

Go visit Scooter's buddies at KSDK (we had sooooo much fun last summer going to visit NewChannel 5 KSDK that we're hoping to make another trip down there this summer for another visit!)

Go visit Huck (and Tiff and Ryan) in Michigan (this is already a planned trip--and will be Patrick's first BIG trip and long car ride! We cannot wait!!! Can you say "matching diapers" ALL THE TIME?!!)

Make an effort to have lots and LOTS of play dates with friends (this is something I want to really try and do A LOT of: making a lot of play dates with my friends with kids--so Patrick gets some socializing time, and (more importantly, right?!!) mama gets some socializing time :)

Go visit dad at work/have lunch (or dinner, depending on his shift) with him (since moving out of the city, this is something we rarely do anymore--and I really want to take advantage of my immense amount of time off when I can pack us up and go meet him (if he's not too busy) for a meal)

Remember my post from a little while back, where I committed myself to using my Google Glass more?! Well, take my list from above, and add "while wearing my Google Glass" to all of it. I really want to (like I said in my post!) use them more and capture our summer through them. Ooooohhhh, good idea Alex: Mooney Summer Through Glass. Stay tuned to see if that pans out (hopefully it will!).

Okay, whew! So that's some bucket list...but I don't think it's too ambitious, I think it's 100% completely doable. Stay tuned this summer for oodles of blog postings about all of the shenanigans Patrick and I (and Mike, when he's not working...and Scooter, when he's invited) get ourselves into! I KNOW this is going to be an amazing summer, and I am so ready to take advantage of every single day--no minute!--that I have to spend with my little man!